how much do you use the word Anglo-Saxon?

I use it as much as I use "The" or "I"
do you use it once a day?
once a week?
once a month?
once a year?
once each 10 years?

Anglo-Saxon is a really uncommon word.

Uriel Tue Dec 06, 2005 4:54 am GMT

I can go years without using it, since I usually think of it as indicating a long-dead group of Europeans, and I don't have a lot of occasions where I find myself discussing them.

It's quite a popular term over on the languages page, though. I expect they use it every day. Usually with some unpleasant vulgarity in front of it.

Latin mongreloid Tue Dec 06, 2005 5:11 am GMT

Anglo-Saxon is a term rarely used in English, yet it is used so much by the French and "Latin" peoples.

Guest Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:02 am GMT

I pretty much never say it.

Easterner Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:09 am GMT

Here in Hungary, the term corresponding to Anglo-Saxon is a convenient way to lump all native English speakers and their cultures together (or lack of a better term, I guess). It is not vulgar on anything like that, just an innocent label, having the same function as Latin has when used to mean all Romance-speaking people. I really have no idea why some English speakers seem to dislike it so much. Maybe they think it creates a stereotype (in the same way "Chicano" or even "Hispanic" does)?

Easterner Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:14 am GMT

Maybe "Anglophone" would be a better term, but the problem with it is that it refers principally to the language, not so much the culture as a whole. We use "Anglo-Saxon" to emphasize the common features of English-speaking countries/cultures, while disregarding the wide differences that exist between them (one such "unifying" feature being the legal system).

Guest Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:19 am GMT

I think it's stupid to call America "anglo-saxon" because it's an English-speaking country when people of English descent are a small minority in the US when compared to the total population.

Candy Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:31 am GMT

<<I really have no idea why some English speakers seem to dislike it so much.>>

I don't dislike it per se, but I do dislike the way so many people on this forum use it as an insult. As we keep explaining, in English it only refers to the people and culture of England 1000 and more years ago. I find it ludicrous when it's used to describe, for example, people from Africa or the Caribbean.

Felicity Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:15 pm GMT

I think I use it around 1 time each 7th year!

Travis Tue Dec 06, 2005 5:22 pm GMT

>>Here in Hungary, the term corresponding to Anglo-Saxon is a convenient way to lump all native English speakers and their cultures together (or lack of a better term, I guess). It is not vulgar on anything like that, just an innocent label, having the same function as Latin has when used to mean all Romance-speaking people. I really have no idea why some English speakers seem to dislike it so much. Maybe they think it creates a stereotype (in the same way "Chicano" or even "Hispanic" does)?<<

It is just that many Americans do not like it when people refer to the US as "Anglo-Saxon", as to most Americans the term, in a modern context, refers to ethnicity (as opposed to the "English-speaking world" sense commonly used in French). One must remember that the English were but one of many different groups which settled the US, and in various areas of the US, such as the Upper Midwest. Consequently, to call the US such is to taken to be saying that the US is fundamentally ethnically Anglo-Saxon, which of course might not be taken that well by many Americans for reasons which should be obvious.

Adam Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:37 pm GMT

You don't have to be of English descent to be "Anglo" (and most Americans are of British descent)

Anglo
Anglo is used in the United States primarily in distinguishing a white English-speaking person from a person of Hispanic heritage. This usage originated in the Southwest, where historical patterns of settlement resulted in three distinct, relatively stable cultural groups: Native American, Hispanic, and most recently Anglo (short for Anglo-American). While Anglo is used exclusively of whites, it is not strictly limited in this context to persons of English ancestry—German Americans, Polish Americans, Irish Americans, and others can all be viewed as Anglos so long as their primary language is English. Outside of the Southwest and southern California, however, Anglo is less widely used as a general label for non-Hispanic whites. In areas where there is no large Hispanic population to be measured against or where ethnic distinctions among various European groups remain strong, Anglo is less commonly used as a catchall term.

Anglo is also used in non-Hispanic contexts. In Canada, where its usage dates at least to 1800, the distinction is between persons of English and French descent. And in American historical contexts Anglo is apt to be used more strictly to refer to Americans of English descent, as in this passage by Benjamin Schwarz describing the politics of nation-building in pre-Revolutionary America: “The ’unity’ of the American people derived … from the ability and willingness of an Anglo elite to stamp its image on other peoples coming to this country“ (the Atlantic Monthly, May 1995). 2

For starters, might you possibly think that such terms might be actually used in an everyday fashion in various locales in a fashion that differs from some given dictionary definition, even one that purports itself to be, say, in this case, US-specific? At least here, "Anglo" is *not* used in such a wide fashion, and is not a synonym with "European", "northern European", or "white" individuals who happen to speak English, no matter what that the American Heritage Book of English Usage may happen to say.

Non Anglo Saxon Damian Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:47 pm GMT

Very few, if any, Scots use the words Anglo Saxon in normal everyday speech, nor do the Welsh I strongly suspect. Unless of course they are discussing English hstory and the development of this lovely Language in which we are all now happily communicating. I reckon if I had 10p for every time I've uttered those words in 2005 I still wouldn't have enough to buy even half a pint of Tennents.

Guest Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:18 am GMT

But are there anyone here who are using it every day?

Lazar Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:24 am GMT

As with Travis, the word "Anglo" is pretty much absent from my dialect. I associate that word with the Southwest and California.